Garrett

Mike and Trevor go back into their mini bungalow to watch some more videos and do random stuff, leaving Faith and I alone. I stare out the window, leaning my hands on the kitchen table, watching the rain pour outside.

For some reason, I find myself really bitter about my parents today, and I can't figure out why. I'm just mad, maybe because today's weather is crappy, I don't know. "Man, this sucks, just like my dad." My eyes are unmoving from the rain outside, but I can feel Faith's eyes glaring at me. "Garrett Cooper, your father was a great man." I roll my eyes and dip my head. "Yeah, right. If he was so great, then why isn't he here? He never even met me," I fume, still staring out at the rain soaked sand. "This is something that you probably don't know yet, but… Your dad died saving my dad's life. We'll never forget your dad, Garrett." That hits me like a wall, but I'm too mad to relent. I'm tearing up, and I'm not doing a good job of hiding it. I give it a moment of thought and say, "What if I wished that it was my dad that made it out so I could meet him just one time?" My voice breaks a little bit, and Faith looks at me, wide-eyed, looking both hurt and shocked that I would say that. "You don't mean that." She looks at me, tears in her eyes, and it makes me just want to sit next to her and apologize, but I can't. I can't make her mad like that. I'll just screw it up even more. When I don't say anything after a few moments, she walks out of the bungalow and toward the beach. Then Michael walks out of Linc's cabin and sees her, a confused and concerned look on his face that's slightly hard to make out in the pouring rain. He walks in the door, soaking wet, and eyes me curiously. "What was that about?" I sigh and look down at my feet. "I'm going to go fix it, I just didn't know if she wanted some time." I walk out the door towards the rocks on the beach without another word.

"Hey," I say, sitting on the rock beside her, watching the raindrops splash onto the ocean. "Go away," Faith says bitterly, not taking her eyes off of the ocean. "No, I won't go away. And do you want to know why?" She looks at me now, and it's evident that she's been crying. "Because I screwed up. I didn't mean what I said, and I never will. Faith, you've been through enough crap for our entire grade, and I'm not going to be the source of more of it." She looks at me and, if I really concentrate, forces a tiny smile. "No, I get it. I know what it feels like to not feel loved," she says, and my heart breaks a little bit. Then the anger towards her kidnappers bubbling in my chest somewhat fills the cracks in my heart. How can you kidnap someone for twelve years and not think twice about it?

"I don't know about you, but I'm getting soaked and I'm going back up to change," I tell her, and she smiles and stands up beside me. "I guess I will too." I grab her hand and we walk on the beach for a little bit in the rain, and it's a good contrast to the humidity. Faith and I walk back to the bungalow, but she pulls me past our bungalow into the palm trees that separate the dirt road from our four bungalows. "Where are we going?" She smiles at me and leads me closer to the trees. "I was sitting up here last night before we went to bed. How well can you climb trees?"

We scale the thick palm tree in a couple minutes, slipping a few times from the still falling rain. There's a small flat space at the top of the tree for two people to sit on, and you have a good view of the beach and ocean from the top. "Wow. It's amazing up here," I comment, looking around in the rain. It's slowed down a little bit from its relentless pour this morning, but it's still harder than a drizzle.

I look around, and I realize that Baja looks very different from fifteen feet off the ground. "So… to continue our conversation under the stars. I haven't heard if you have a nickname or not," I ask, staring into the cloudy sky. "Umm… I haven't really thought about it. What do you think?" I give it a moment of thought. "What's your middle name?" She looks down at the ground which seems an eternity away from up here. "I don't know. I haven't asked yet."

I give it a second of thought. "Hmm… You sometimes call me Cooper, so what if I called you Scofield?" She smiles in the rain, and it makes her look really pretty with her strands of auburn hair around her face. "Why not?" I laugh at her and we sit together for a few more minutes before Faith starts to shiver. "Let's go in for real this time."

As she's climbing down, Faith falls from about eight feet off of the ground, landing perfectly on her feet. Her knees buckle a little bit, and she grits her teeth in what I see as pain. "Are you okay?" She takes a step and grimaces, and I know that she probably can't make it back to the bungalow. So I make a move. I stand in front of her and lift her onto my back. "What the heck!" I run back into our smaller bungalow, hands around the backs of her knees. "I'm saving your life. You could have died over there," I joke, and she laughs. She wraps her arms loosely around my neck as I keep running back, laughing all the way back to the bungalow.

I sit her down on the queen bed in our small room and stand in the doorway. "Stay right there. I'll be back," I say. She rolls her eyes and laughs. "Garrett, it just hurt on impact. I'm fine." I smile and walk out, going into the kitchen. Michael's sitting in the living room, and he smiles at me. "She's okay." He nods at me, smiling. "Thank you," he says.

I go to the fridge and make Faith and I sandwiches. I grab a bag of chips from the cabinet and walk back to the small bungalow in the drizzle, still soaked in rain. My black Air Force Ones are literally soaked to the core, but I don't care.

"Cooper, what in the world!" She looks at me and laughs. "What? I thought you might be hungry because it's almost 12:30."

I hand her the turkey sandwich that I made and open the bag of chips. "Thanks," she says, taking a bite of her sandwich. "This is good. For a turkey sandwich," Faith adds between bites. I laugh. "What can I say? I'm a master chef."

I finish my sandwich and seal the bag of chips off and prepare myself for the cold rain that's surely waiting outside. "Thanks. And, by the way, you never told me your nickname," Faith calls after me. I lean back into the doorway. "Umm… my friends call me Gare, but I would be cool with G. Only from you, though," I reply. I make sure to add that on the end before I walk into the slight drizzle to put the chips away in the bungalow.

It's really hot and muggy out since the rain has mostly stopped except for a few stray drips from the roof and trees. I put the chips back in the cabinet and think of something to surprise her with. And then I remember the MM's I threw in my bag before we left. I grab those and a pair of her Adidas sweatpants, her t-shirt, and my sweatshirt.

I'm still soaked, and I know that she is too, so I grab an outfit for myself. I toss the sweatpants for her onto the bed and she picks them up, confused. "Uh, Garrett? It's, like, eight hundred degrees outside." She walks back inside with the pants and sweatshirt, and, from what I can infer, gets a pair of shorts instead.

She walks back out in a lilac and white striped swimsuit, and then I walk back into our smaller bungalow and change into my swim shorts, the red Nike ones that match the lines on the basketball court near the beach. I run to meet her on the long chairs that sit by the beach, and I opt for the green and blue one under an umbrella. Faith takes the pink and white one beside me on the other side of the same umbrella that I'm under, but the chairs are still in the sun to where we can get a decent tan. It's warming up and the sun's coming out, even though it's almost one o'clock.

It feels good to sit in the sun for a while, warming up and not shivering anymore. I've stripped myself of my soaking wet Nike socks and Air Force Ones. Faith decided that they would dry the fastest in the sun, so she took my shoes in her hands and climbed the exterior bungalow wall so we put them on the flat roof in the brightest area of sun. They shouldn't take too long to dry out now.

I stretch out on the chair and put a pair of sunglasses on, reclining it back to make it flat. "I'm going to go bother my uncle for a little bit," Faith says, a mischievous look on her face. "I just need some spray plaster." I quirk an eyebrow at her and she smiles.

We walk together up to Linc's bungalow, Faith smiling the whole way there.

"Hey, Linc!" Faith walks into the living room where LJ, Linc, and Michael are watching the soccer game on TV. "Hey, Faith." He pushes a button on the remote, causing the TV to show static. "Crap. I just want to watch some baseball, is that too much to ask?"

"Can I look at it for a second?" Linc raises his eyebrows at me and shrugs. "Sure, kid. If you can find an MLB channel on this TV, then you're pretty cool." I take the remote from his outstretched arm and point it at the TV. I press the "Guide" button and it displays all the channels, then I scroll through until I find ESPN. There's the Top Ten plays on, and that's really the only American channel here. "Yeah, no. They're all hockey and soccer, and no offense to you if you play either of them, but I don't like soccer because they're aren't any stars that I can really name. Hockey is the same way, and they just fight on ice, and I'm pretty sure those two things don't mix." I smile. "It's okay, I just play basketball and baseball anyway. And, by the way, do you have Hulu here?" I know that they bought these bungalows from the old owners, because they used to serve as a small resort until the Scofields and Burrows' bought them to use every year for their vacation, so there's a small chance that they have Hulu or some other TV extension like that where I can find a game. "Uh, I think so, I just don't know where the remote for it is anymore." Linc looks around in a few of the drawers until he produces a small remote from the depths of the bottom drawer. "Linc, how many times have I told you? That drawer is a disaster. In fact, I'll give the kids a job. If you can clean out Uncle Linc's junk drawer, organize it, throw all the crap that he doesn't need away, I'll personally give you five dollars each." Faith turns to Michael and smiles. "It's a deal," she says. I flip through channels until I find one that is showing an MLB game; Astros versus Cubs. "There you go, kid." I look onto the screen to see that the game is in the bottom of the third inning, Cubs at bat. The Cubs runner on second base has a lead off of about four steps, which is enough for the Astros pitcher to make a pickoff. The second baseman starts slapping the inside of his glove, signaling to the pitcher that the runner's leading off. "Watch, in a couple seconds he'll go for the pickoff," I say, eyes glued to the game. Just like I said, the pitcher makes a clean pickoff throw, the third out on the Cubs. "How did you see that coming?" Linc and Michael are looking at me like I'm from Mars. "Watch," I explain, rewinding the game by a few seconds. "The second baseman slaps his palm when the runner leads off so the pitcher knows. It's subtle, but if you look really close you can see it." I play the game again so they can see the play. "Oh, I see it. Look, his wrist barely moves," Michael explains, smiling as he watches the screen. "Whatever, I can't see that far. I'll take your word for it." Then the first Astros batter hits a bomb over the center field's head. "Whoever mows the outfield needs to get paid more," Linc jokes, noticing the criss-cross pattern in the outfield.

Faith and I start on Linc's drawer, and Michael was right, it is atrocious. He has probably thirty stray movie cases (only half of which actually contain movies), random pieces of paper, pens, remotes, batteries, paper clips (kind of looks like a Staples store in his drawer, now that I think about it.) It's a funny contrast to his brother; Michael can't leave a sticky note out of place on his desk in his office at their house. He's so extremely neat, can't have the corner of a paper a centimeter off center. But Linc, on the other hand, couldn't care any less about how organized anything of his is. This drawer, as well as a multitude of other things, just go to show how true that statement is.

I put all the movie cases that actually contain movies on the floor next to the open drawer. Faith and I are treating this like rocket surgery, because we have no idea what could lie in the bottom. Probably gum or something like that.

And then I actually take a look at some of the movies in the cases and realize that they're the wrong ones.

"Dear Lord," I whisper under my breath, and Faith eyes me with a curious look. "What?" Michael and Linc are still sitting on the couch, immersed in the baseball game on TV. "All the movies are in the wrong cases," I laugh, and it's really funny at that moment, although I'm not sure why. "Great."

After another hour of sorting, throwing away, and stacking, we've gotten Linc's drawer to be at least halfway organized. "Wow. That's way better," Michael compliments us, and if it can please him, as much as a perfectionist as he is, then I'd say that we did a great job.

It's time for dinner now, and it seems like we're going to that seafood place on the beach. "Garrett, Trevor, Faith, start getting ready. It's a formal place, just so you know." Well, crud. I was hoping that it would be a casual restaurant so I could wear a pair of gym shorts, but I guess not.

I take the same suit that I wore to the dance inside the bathroom in our small bungalow to change. It's the most comfortable suit that I have, probably because it fits the best.

As we get ready to leave, I notice that all the men are wearing white shirts, black jackets, black ties, and black pants. It's a little bit freaky, because that's what I'm wearing too and I know for a fact that I didn't fashion coordinate.

All the women are wearing dresses of different colors, and they look really pretty in the sun that's almost setting.

We start walking along the white sandy beach, just out of reach of the surf that crashes into shore. We can see the restaurant from the beach, and it's only about thirty yards from the furthest bungalow in the little cluster of them where we're staying.

Faith is wearing a blue dress, and she looks really pretty in it, but her parents are around. I would've kissed her already if it wasn't for that small hurdle.

We walk in the door and the waiter looks as if he knows them by name. He takes us to a couple tables in the corner of the small restaurant, and we sit down and look out at the window to see the surf crashing against the white sand. The sun's just barely started to set, and I think that the sky looks like a really awesome blend of oranges, yellows, reds, and a touch of pink. "Earth to G." Faith's voice snaps me into reality. "Since when does she get to call you that?" Trevor is so idiotic sometimes, I'm questioning why I'm still friends with him. "Because, Trevor Caley. Because she can." He looks at me like, "Jeez, where did that come from?" I look back to Faith to see what she was wanting to say. "You were saying?" She smiles at me and looks out to the sunset. "I was going to say that you looked nice, and now I'm wondering why you find the sunset so intriguing." I blush, and Mike raises his eyebrow at me. "Garrett Lucas Cooper, stop. And, besides, she's not even that cute." Faith looks offended, then she playfully punches him in the arm. "Yeah she is," Trevor chimes in from the corner. I look at him with a glare that could cut through the bread that the waitress just brought for the appetizer. "Not to you she's not." He looks down and grabs a piece of the bread from the basket and shoves it into his mouth.

The waitress comes back to the adult table, and she looks like she's only about sixteen. "What can I get for you guys?" Linc starts, and I'm just waiting for him to say something like a hamburger, which is what you'd expect from a guy like him. A burger at a seafood restaurant. "Uh, can I have a cube steak?" Michael leans his elbow on the table and rubs his temples. I suppress a laugh at Linc, because I was almost right. "You'll get used to it," Faith leans over and whispers to me.

There are six chairs at the table where all the kids are sitting, and I'm sitting the furthest to the left with Faith beside me and Maria on the other side of Faith. Mike and Trevor opted for the other side, although I'm not really sure what difference it makes.

The waitress comes over to our table to take our orders, and I already decided that shrimp sounds really great right now. "Can I have the shrimp?" The waitress writes this down and Faith gives me a look of confusion. "I'll do the same thing," Faith says beside me, and I forgot for a second that she hasn't eaten any of this before. Mike and Trevor order burgers (of course), and Maria ordered a grouper. I forgot about those. They're really good too.

"I literally had no idea what anything was. Like, what in the world is a hamburger?" Trevor looks at her like she's from another planet. "We had those on the last day of school," Trevor says unhelpfully. "Bro, okay. She's only been in civilization for like, a week and a half."

I'm pretty sure that the waitress winks at me while she walks away. The tension at this table has immediately shot through the roof.

•••

About an hour later, we leave the restaurant after we ate and walk back to the bungalow. "Hey, um, when we get back, I have some news for you guys," LJ grins. He intertwines his hands with Michelle's, and I think I know where this is going.

We sit on the small wooden swings and chairs that overlook the ocean, and LJ looks at Linc with a smile. "Okay, um, here goes nothing." LJ looks at Michelle and smiles at her, then turns back to Linc beside him on the swing. "We're pregnant," LJ and Michelle say at the same time. Linc looks shocked and then excited. "You're serious. Not joking, totally serious?" LJ nods with a grin. Michael's trying not to laugh while he sits in the chair right below Linc's feet. "Huh. Grandpa Linc. I like it," Michael taunts, and Linc kicks him lightly in the back of the head. "Shut up."

"Just saying, it's good to see my brother show his age before me."

I'm in our smaller bungalow, unbuttoning my shirt when Faith walks in, still wearing her dress. My shirt's halfway unbuttoned, and we stare kind of awkwardly at each other. "Mmm… okay," I awkwardly stutter, walking into the bathroom to change.

The sun is all the way set now, showing the navy blue clear sky with the stars that look like glitter. We've kind of retreated to our rooms for the night, reading books and playing games on our phones. I'm looking through Faith's Instagram, and she doesn't know it, but I'm liking every single picture on her account. "What's wrong with your phone? It's going off so fast," I say, pretending to be surprised. She looks at Instagram to check her notifications and she playfully shakes her head. "Are you trying to keep me awake all night? It's already eleven thirty." I chuckle to myself and like her first one just to punctuate the playful argument. "G!" She punches me on the arm lightly, and I dramatically roll of of the mattress to be stupid. "Okay, now that was dramatic," she giggles.

Tonight is way hotter than last night, and I'm starting to sweat already at midnight. Not a good sign.

"Okay, I can't be the only one that thinks it's a sweat box in here," Faith says, throwing the comforter off of herself. "Thank you! It was so hot, I just didn't know if you were hot or not." I lay on top of the blankets instead, and it's a little more comfortable, but it's still really hot. "There's a fan in the cabinet by the door," Faith pitches in, and I gladly roll out of the bed to go grab it and set it up. There's a small nightstand beside the cabinet, and I put the fan on top of it and turn it on.

Faith walks into the bathroom and changes into a tank top, laying back down on the mattress with a sigh.

At this point, I'm sweating like I just ran a mile. "Garrett, are you okay?" I look at her with a smile, then I fold my hands behind my head and look up at the ceiling. "Yeah, I just don't have anything cooler." She gives me the "Too Bad, So Sad" look and turns onto her back.

A few minutes later, I'm pretty sure she's asleep, leaving me in my feelings.

I've gotta do something; it's too hot in here, even with the fan on.

I debate for a second what I want to do, and then I just take my shirt off. It's the easiest thing to do.

I lay on the comforter for a minute, thinking about the past week or so and how dramatically my life changed.

Flashback (Monday, May 22, 5 days before Faith's arrival

"Dude, it's so hot out here," Mike complains, and I'm sitting there, trying to cover the bruise on my face. "Gare, hello? Earth to Garrett Cooper." I snap my eyes up from the cement to meet his brown eyes. "Yeah, what?" My head is leaning on my fist that's covering the bruise on my right cheek. "What's wrong with you? You're not normally like this," Mike notices, looking genuinely concerned. He smacks my arm off of my face, revealing the black and blue bruise on my cheek that I so desperately tried to hide. "Oh my gosh, dude, who did that to you?" He looks scared and angry at the same time, and I look away from his eyes because explaining will be easier if I don't have to look him in the eyes. "I was skateboarding last night and I was trying to ollie, but I fell and hit my face on the rail at the skatepark." I wouldn't tell him to save my life that it was my adoptive dad that hit me last night.

"Dude, I've done that before. It sucks," he says, apparently buying my story, at least for now. I would rather lie to him than make him suspicious, because my adoptive parents (I refuse to call them my parents) told me not to say anything to a soul.

I've been depressed lately, not having emotions and faking my happiness more than I'm really happy. Nobody knows, because my parents wouldn't care, and my friends don't need my problems.

At this point in life, I'm silently crying myself to sleep every night, because if they hear me then they'll hurt me. I always take the punishments with a smile, and now Bill doesn't punish me anymore because he doesn't think it works. But it does, I've just buried the pain so far into the desolate corners of my mind that I haven't visited in a long time. But with every new bruise comes a new detail to shove into the dark, depressing isolated corner of my mind.

End Flashback

And now I'm happy again, probably because I consider the Scofields, Sucres, and Burrows' my family. It's actually nice to have people in your life that have some decency.

I must have fallen asleep, because in what could have been hours or mere minutes, I wake up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. The nightmares are getting worse and I don't like it.

I must have woken Faith up, because she sits up beside me and looks at me seriously. "Are you good?" I'm still breathing hard, and for some reason I just can't chill out. "Hey, Garrett, come back to me, okay?" She wraps her arm around my bare shoulder without a thought, and I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my head on my kneecaps. "Okay."

We just sit like that for a little bit until I'm okay again.

"What happened?" I take a breath and swallow, not sure if I want to venture into that corner. "The cold, hard truth?" She nods at me, and I sigh and get ready to tell her everything about myself, no censorship.

"My adoptive parents… they're abusive. Always have been, always will be. They adopted me two years ago, and that's when the depression started. There were days where I felt like I would never be happy again, that I would never smile for real for the rest of my life. I faked my smiles, faked my happiness for years, and you're the first one that's ever known anything about it. I never dared even tell Mike or Trevor, because I was afraid of what would happen at home if I said anything. I would think about my parents, about what they were like, about how they would have been if they were still here. I cried myself to sleep for countless nights in a row, always in fear that they'd hear me and come to see what I was doing." She looks at me with tears in her eyes, genuine, caring tears, and she pulls me into a hug that sends happiness to my very core. "I'm sorry," she whispers into my ear, her voice breaking ever so slightly. I smile, truly smile, not even within a mile of fake. "It's not your fault."

We lay back down, trying to sleep, but knowing that it will never come.